


Forever and Ever, Amen

by PersianPenName



Series: Angst Bingo 2020 Prompts [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, I guess Crowley just has a cat now?, Love Confessions, M/M, Over and over and over and over and over, Repeated Discorporation, Scene: Church in London 1941 (Good Omens), Time Loop, angst bingo 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:06:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27245461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersianPenName/pseuds/PersianPenName
Summary: For the Angst 2020 Bingo prompt:Curse: Time LoopAnthony J. Crowley is reliving a particular day in 1941.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Angst Bingo 2020 Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908304
Comments: 7
Kudos: 62
Collections: GO Angst Bingo 2020





	Forever and Ever, Amen

London, 1941

Crowley has been tracking a group of Nazis for months now. They’re part of Germany’s Thule Society, a group dedicated more to increasing their own supernatural and temporal power than furthering their Fuhrer’s aims, but still aiding him and therefore on Crowley’s shit list. This particular group is after books of prophecy, _in Britain_ , so they’re on it twice, underlined, with arrows.

Working with MI5 has given Crowley less time to ~~stalk~~ ~~pine after~~ keep an eye on Aziraphale, but he’s well-placed enough for now that he’s got a rotating cast of junior agents making sure he doesn’t get into any trouble. He still keeps an infernal ear open, as it were, to the thrumming holy signature that is Aziraphale’s presence in London. Not enough to pinpoint his exact location, not enough to distract him, but it’s a habit by now, an unconscious comfort, stinging and sliding his metaphysical scales over and back on that divine warmth like a worry stone. He’s gotten word that there’s going to be a meet up soon, and he’s still organizing a list of contacts to question when that warmth abruptly vanishes.

It’s almost dawn by the time he finds the body, cold and abandoned on the floor of the church. Ignoring the burning in his flesh, Crowley falls to his knees and clutches Aziraphale to his chest, tears streaming down his face. _It’s only discorporation_ , he tries to tell himself as the sobs wrack his body, _he’ll come back. He’ll come back to you_. But he remembers the last words spoken between them, remembers _fraternizing_ and _I don’t need you_ , and he doubts. He presses a kiss onto Aziraphale’s forehead, onto those slack lips, and in the silence of the church he whispers, “I love you.”

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes without a hangover, in his own bed. Not on the floor of the bookshop, surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol, with the angel’s body cleaned of blood and gently laid out on the couch. By instinct, he reaches out for the feeling of Aziraphale, and he’s there, he’s _there!_ Crowley doesn’t think before he’s in the front seat of the bentley, through the door and turning the sign to Closed, wrapping his arms around Aziraphale’s waist and burying his face in his neck where he stands at the little kitchenette heating water for tea, soft strains of Vivaldi echoing in the shop.

“You’re back. You’re back, you’re back.” He’s shaking, his eyes are leaking, his heart is pounding and he’s lost all control over his corporation. Aziraphale turns in his arms, surprise writ large on his face, hands coming up to clasp Crowley’s shoulders, and _oh god Crowley’s kissing him_.

For a moment he’s aware of nothing else except the feel of Aziraphale’s mouth against his own, unyielding at first and then oh, pressing into him like a hungry thing, sucking and nibbling on his lower lip, one hand coming up to grip his messy, sleep-fucked hair. Crowley melts into him, content to be guided into any position the angel might desire. Then the hand tightens and he’s being wrenched away, held at arms’ length, and Aziraphale’s face is flushed but stern.

“Crowley,” he says firmly, “What the devil do you think you’re doing? Eighty _years_ and I hear nothing from you — you might’ve been dead! — then you just waltz in one morning and _kiss_ me!”

“You kissed me back!” he protests, and oh fuck, Aziraphale had _kissed him back_. He feels a dopey grin creep over his face, and touches his fingers to his lips. Aziraphale had _kissed him back!_ The angel’s cheeks darken and his lips purse; Satan but he loves that bastard streak.

Aziraphale had _kissed him back_.

“I love you.” The words are out before he can stop himself. Not a revelation, he knows he’s not that subtle, not with this, but an admission. Something to be laid at the angel’s feet like a gift.

“I know.” Aziraphale’s eyes close, the hand in Crowley’s hair open and gentle now, thumb stroking idly over the side of his neck. A soft tug forward and Crowley’s got his arms around him again, their foreheads resting against each other.

“S’not a trick or a temptation or anything,” he whispers.

“Oh my dear boy, I know.” He sighs. “I confess it took me quite some time to realize that what I was sensing was you, and not,” he waves his hand vaguely, “the background hum of love in the universe, as it were.”

“How _did_ you know?”

Aziraphale hesitates. Glances upwards. “I went to Heaven, and I realized it… wasn’t there.”

“Ah.”

“Quite.” Silence descends between them, as they both remember the coldness of Heaven. “It took me quite a bit longer to realize I love you as well. Have done, for ages.”

“How much longer?”

The angel’s laugh is warm against his cheek. “Until the most infuriating and wonderful creature She ever created barged into my bookshop and snogged me silly as I was making my morning tea.”

“Nnnnguh.”

“Eloquent as always, my darling.”

Morning has given way to afternoon, and then to evening; soft kisses have given way to touches, and then to skin gliding against skin; Crowley has given all of himself to his angel, and joyously been taken in return. He is drowsing in Aziraphale’s bed, burrowed into the soft duvets like a creature in its den and basking in their shared scent, when the clock downstairs strikes the hour and Aziraphale jumps.

“Dearest, I have to go out for just a bit,” he kisses into Crowley’s hair. “Just have to nip out for a quick delivery, I’ll be back before you know it.”

An incoherent sound of complaint emerges from the blankets, but the demon does not. He opens himself to the feel of Aziraphale’s aura while his body is absent, making himself as at home within its warmth as he is in the angel’s bed. He’s just about to doze off again when the warmth suddenly snuffs out.

He finds him in the same church as before, cold and soaked in blood from a shot to the chest. Exactly as before. His feet blister and burn, and the skin of his knees cracks and splits as he kneels on consecrated ground to lift Aziraphale’s empty corporation into his arms. He doesn’t know what’s going on, why Aziraphale would come back to this terrible place, but he shoots an angry glare at the altar as he carries his angel out to the car. He’ll take him home, and clean him up (again), and then he’ll tend to his own wounds and wait.

Aziraphale _will_ come back to him. He knows it this time.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed, alone and unburnt. He knows, he _knows_ , that he fell asleep in Aziraphale’s bed stone-cold sober, holding his corporation’s hand while he waited for his return. He remembers the pain of holy burns on his skin, the headache and dehydration that came after an extended bout of crying, all of it gone now. He’s up and dressed with a snap, hands clenching angrily around the bentley’s steering wheel as he points it towards Soho, and the angel’s familiar aura.

Aziraphale is heating water for tea in the kitchenette, quietly _bum bum bum_ ing along with the same Vivaldi that he’d been enjoying the day before, when Crowley barges into the shop already mid-argument.

“It’s _rude_ , is what it is,” Crowley waves his hands back towards the door, in the direction of his flat. “Kicking a bloke out like that with no warning! Could’ve at least woken me up to say you’d gotten back all right, instead of just popping me off home without so much as a by your leave.”

Aziraphale’s mouth is open in shock, and he blinks rapidly.

“And the church!” Crowley’s built up a good head of steam at this point, having rehearsed it in his head several times on the drive. “What in Hell’s name would possess you to go back to where you’d just been shot — one day ago! — so you can, what, have a _friendly chat_ with your murderers?” Crowley’s leaning hard into the angel’s personal space, one hand on either side trapping him against the counter. “At least warn me if you’re going to be that phenomenally stupid, so I know where to go so I can _drag your bloody body_ back to the bookshop!”

“Crowley, what the devil are you on about?” Aziraphale is bent back over the counter, brows drawn down in anger and confusion. “You aren’t making any sense.”

Crowley bares his teeth and tears himself away, throwing his hands up dramatically. “ _I’m_ not making sense!? ‘ _Just got to make a quick delivery_ , Crowley.’ ‘ _Be back before you know it_ , Crowley.’ You think you can just up and die on me, now that I’ve got you?”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale’s voice echoes in the dust of the bookshop, stopping him in his tracks. He calmly collects his tea and sits in his usual spot at the desk, before pointing firmly at the couch on the opposite side. “Sit down, shut up, and then explain yourself, _slowly_.” He takes a sip with a look that clearly says he will brook no argument.

Crowley perches on the armrest and rolls his eyes. “I don’t know what’s so hard to get here, angel. You’ve got to admit it’s a bit of a shock to go from you buggering me right over this bloody sofa and saying you want to _mark me up all pretty_ , then going and getting yourself discorporated for the second time in twenty four hours, and as soon as you get back you, what, decide you don’t want me all bruised and clingy on you after all?” He can feel his lip rising in an ugly sneer. “So you pop me on back home, all patched up like nothing happened? Like I’m your _dirty little secret?_ ”

“Nothing _did_ happen, Crowley!” Aziraphale leans forward, tea forgotten. “I haven’t seen you since — since we fought that day in the park, and you’re not making any more sense now than you did then. I haven’t been discorporated in ages, and I _certainly_ haven’t buggered you, on the sofa or anywhere else! _It never happened_ , Crowley.”

“Really.” Said Crowley flatly. “You’re just going to deny the whole day. Well, that’s a new one, isn’t it.” He makes sure his sunglasses are firm over his eyes as he stands and starts making his way to the door, over the angel’s frustrated protests. “I can’t, Aziraphale. I just — I can’t.”

He contemplates another long nap before turning the bentley towards his office. He needs something to lose himself in for a while, and foiling Nazi plots is convoluted enough to suit. He’s so caught up in it that he almost doesn’t notice when evening rolls around and Aziraphale’s aura once again goes dark.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley is in his own bed, but he hadn’t gone to sleep. After recovering Aziraphale’s body, cleaning it with what’s becoming an unsettlingly familiar process, and leaving it on the sofa he very much _had_ been buggered over, thank you, Crowley had come back to his flat and cleaned up his burns himself. They were lighter, this time, as he hadn’t wasted any time looking elsewhere but gone straight to the church, and a brief thought flickered through him of perhaps picking up some human shoes instead of simply adjusting his feet if the idiot decided to keep making a habit of being shot in bloody churches. After, he’d sat on his couch in the dark, chin on his hands, and waited. As the sun rose, he felt a tingle of magic in the air, and between one blink and the next he was back in his silk pajamas and laying in his bed, the feel of Aziraphale’s aura a reassuring weight against his senses.

Something is very much _not fucking right_.

He walks to the bookshop this morning, taking his time and observing his surroundings on the way. A woman in a blue dress whose cut he thinks would suit him, must remember that for later, is arguing with a boy (thankfully) too young to be sent off to war. A grungy possibly-ginger cat is dragging an empty chip wrapper out of a garbage can, growling when Crowley passes by too close. At a pop-up station on the corner, a smarmy older man is berating a too-skinny youth of indeterminate gender about the quality of their shoe shine, loudly proclaiming it isn’t worth what they’re charging and he’s not going to pay. Crowley glares at him as he passes, and the asshole’s wallet falls on the ground as he charges off. Kid should be able to get at least a few meals out of it. Finally he’s there, standing in front of A. Z. Fell & Co., and he’s not sure if it’s for the first time in eighty years or the third time in as many days, or somehow both. Well, no time like the… maybe the past. Or present. Whichever, he’s going in.

Aziraphale is farther along in both his tea and his Vivaldi, sitting in his armchair in the back room and thoroughly enjoying both. Crowley takes a moment to drink him in, warm aura and warm smile and _bless it_ he’s a shit excuse for a demon. Adjusting his hat, he leans entirely undramatically against a bookshelf and clears his throat.

“Hello, Aziraphale.”

The familiar look of surprise.

“Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you saw me?”

Of course the tight-lipped bastard doesn’t believe in time loops. _Or_ telling Crowley who he’s meeting and why. He shakes as he drives away from the bookshop, but he needs a break. He’ll put in a few hours of work to clear his head. Maybe actually be on time in the morning tomorrow.

He sits motionless at his desk instead, watching the clock until he’s the only being of angel-stock in London.

* * *

London, 1941

He just has to keep him from the church. That’s all. If he doesn’t go in, nobody gets shot. Simple. Just lay his cards out on the table and tell Aziraphale that as much as he’d love to indulge his rescue kink (or any of his kinks, really), right now he needs him to just _trust_ Crowley for _one night_ and he’ll explain everything.

* * *

London, 1941

Probably shouldn’t have called it a rescue kink.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley rests his head in his hands and pulls lightly at his slicked-back hair. _Bless it all_ , but he’s an idiot of the worst degree. It’s been staring him in the face this whole time! The Nazi meetup, the church, the _books of prophecy!_ What else would Aziraphale be so mixed up in that would be so dangerous? Crowley checks his watch; there should be just enough time to make it there before he’s shot (again). He just needs to get in, grab Aziraphale, and get out. He’ll be alive, the angel will be alive, and he’ll be _out of this blessed time loop_ once and for all.

The rescue, surprisingly, is working. He hotfoots his way down the aisle, waving his hands and generally making a nuisance of himself by loudly declaring that _no, nope, we are **not** doing this today, no thank you, no guns tonight lads (ma’am), I’ll just be taking him and be on my way._

He’s fairly certain the sheer surprising ballsiness is what’s getting them through. Aziraphale is shocked into silence, at first, but begins protesting when Crowley takes his wrist in one hand and starts shoving him back towards the doors. Halfway there, he sets his feet and refuses to be moved any farther, and Crowley’s halfway through _will you just bloody listen to me for once_ when there’s a loud sound behind him and a strange stinging warmth beneath his ribs. He’s propelled forward, into Aziraphale’s arms, and who made that mess on his waistcoat? Got red all over, that’s no good, Crowley will have to miracle it away for him. When did he get on the floor? There’s a ringing in his ears and a familiar tug downward, he can feel Hell just beneath him, through the onionskin paper of reality, a cold and slimy contrast to the sharp heat of the consecrated floor beneath him.

Aziraphale’s eyes are so blue. Has he ever told him that? How beautiful he is? Must’ve done. Too important. He can see Aziraphale’s lips moving, but all he can hear is the ringing, and even that’s far away now. He leans forward to kiss those beautiful lips, and lets his eyes close.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed with the memory of pain. Okay, so that plan hadn’t worked. There wasn’t any reason why it should’ve, really, except for that mix of desperation and optimism otherwise known as the inside of his own head. Aziraphale’s a reasonable man-shaped being, though, so surely telling him his contact in “British Intelligence” is in fact a Nazi spy set on duping him will keep him from the church entirely. There’s no way this can fail.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley spends the entire afternoon trying to dig up _physical proof_ that there is no Captain Rose Montgomery, but that Greta Kleinschmidt exists and is very real, for the world’s most insufferably stubborn over-dramatic _arsehole_ of an angel. The sheer number of stop-and-start, cloak-and-dagger telephone calls he has to make overwhelms his sense of time, and when Aziraphale’s aura goes out he’s utterly unprepared.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed. He doesn’t leave it.

* * *

London, 1941

He lets himself sink deep into Aziraphale’s aura, deeper than he ever has before. There’s a tingling to it, a sense not of movement, but of the _potential_ for movement, as if there’s only one final barrier keeping them from flowing freely into each other. Like he can peer through the waters of him and almost see the shapes of the creatures beneath.

He wonders what shapes Aziraphale would see in him, if he ever dared to look.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed and goes right back to sleep. At least this way he can pretend the feeling of the angel on one morning and the next is one blissful, uninterrupted existence. He shoves a pillow over his face and calls himself the worst kind of coward.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley makes a mental note to always believe someone if they tell him they’re stuck in a time loop, just on principle.

* * *

London, 1941

Is one of the rules of time loops that you can’t talk about time loops?

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley sits at his desk, hands clenched in his hair. “What is it you _want_ from me?” His voice is hoarse and thick with tears. “He goes to the church; he stays home. He dies; I die. Is this all just a punishment? Just send me round and round until I go mad? Tell me if it is, I’ll _do it_ if it keeps him safe. Just please, stop hurting him. I can’t take it.”

* * *

London, 1941

“Is it the Nazis? Do they have to die? You know I hate killing, hate it when you make other people your instruments. At least the flood was honest.”

* * *

London, 1941

“Why now? Why _this_ day? What have I done recently that’s so much worse that _this_ is the only answer?

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley discovers _exactly_ how much alcohol it takes to discorporate. Much more than he’d anticipated; he makes a note to stop worrying about a bottle or six next time he spends the evening at the bookshop.

Dagon is less than amused.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley decides to try for a rescue, again. When Aziraphale starts shouting for his MI5 backup, Crowley miracles the sound of many pairs of running footsteps, many guns cocking. The Nazis panic, and the thud of a body hitting the church floor is louder than any of his phantom sounds.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley, in human shoes, hops gingerly over the church ground (turns out they _don’t_ help, but you live and learn). He doesn’t want to risk a miracle on holy ground, but that’s why humans invented guns, isn’t it? He’ll take out the Nazis before they can hurt Aziraphale, and everyone who matters will be safe and whole.

* * *

London, 1941

 _Bless it_ but that woman’s a good shot.

* * *

London, 1941

There’s got to be another way to manage this. Maybe something… bigger?

* * *

London, 1941

He points his fingers in the air as the sound of the bomb gets closer and closer. At the last moment, he tries to call on his infernal power to protect him and the angel from the upcoming blast.

It doesn’t work.

* * *

London, 1941

“Oh, the _books!_ Oh, I forgot all the books! They’ll all have been blown to bits!”

_Fuck._

* * *

London, 1941

Okay, he’ll never hear the end of it if he miracles Aziraphale’s precious books, but if he makes it so the bag can’t be damaged, and does it _before_ the Nazis enter the church…

“That was very kind of you.”

He stands amidst the rubble, yellow eyes and soft expression on full display. “Don’t like it when you’re hurt,” he whispers, and holds out the books.

“No, I… I suppose you never have.”

Aziraphale takes the handle, but Crowley doesn’t release it. When the angel’s finger brushes against him, he answers with a caress of his own, and moves closer. Aziraphale is tilting his face up, eyes heavy-lidded and lips parting before he even leans in. “Let me take you home, angel.”

“Oh, my darling. Yes.”

Crowley is on the couch in the bookshop, straddling Aziraphale’s lap, his burnt and bandaged feet hanging safely off the edge as the angel fucks up into him. There are bruises on his hips, his ribs, bite marks on his throat and thighs. His glasses are gone, trousers and pants and waistcoat too, only his shirt hanging open on his shoulders and his vest rucked up to expose his belly and chest. Aziraphale’s broad hands grip him tightly, thumbs caressing the jut of his bones and thick fingers squeezing the scant meat of his buttocks. Crowley is clutching the angel’s shoulders, foreheads braced together, and Aziraphale is murmuring a steady whisper of filth and praise while he slides in and out of Crowley’s body.

“So good, so _sweet_ my dear, my darling. You’re taking me so well, my beautiful, marvelous, wonderful demon. So tight, so — _ah!_ — so hot inside, my _wicked_ boy, my delight, my love. You were so brave tonight, so kind, so _good_ my sweetness, I love you so dreadfully. I’m going to come right inside this lovely arse of yours, my serpent, fill you right up with me so all of Heaven and Hell will know you’re mine.”

Crowley keens and collapses forward, burying his face in the angel’s neck, and Aziraphale gives a pleased groan and brings his lips to his lover’s ear.

“You _are_ mine, aren’t you darling? Yes, my handsome snake, my _hero_ , my only one, my delightful doting demon, so good for me, _just_ for me, aren’t you? Oh, you wreck me, beloved, those sweet cries, that mouth, these — these _hips_ , oh, I want to live between them forever, take you apart, feel you inside me. I want to use that beautiful mouth of yours, would you like that? Ride your cock until you can’t come anymore, then swap it out for a quim so I can _keep — fucking — you!”_

He comes with a sob, seed spattering against Aziraphale’s waistcoat, and with a few more deep thrusts the angel is following after. He presses kisses to Crowley’s temple, his eyelids, his cheek, noses nuzzling together in what Crowley would call a sickening display of affection if he weren’t the recipient, all the while sharing soft whispers of _I love you, I love you, I love you._

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley is bent over the back of the couch, trousers still around his ankles and one of the angel’s hands on his lower back holding him in place.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley is spread out on Aziraphale’s desk, knees over the angel’s shoulders as Aziraphale sinks a third finger into him.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley’s back is pressed to a shelf of first editions, and all he can think as he melts into the feeling of Aziraphale’s mouth on him is _I win, Wilde._

* * *

London, 1941

What the fuck can he possibly be _missing?_

* * *

London, 1941

He can’t take any more of this, he just can’t. He’s got the timing down on the bomb and the bag. He’s been fucked in, on, and around every piece of furniture Aziraphale owns. He’s confessed his love with simple words, with flowery ones, with moans, with whispers, with his tongue buried in angelic arse. He spent a number of loop-weeks with the strangers on the London streets, soothing Edna and Ralph’s argument about his older brothers being shipped off while he stays home, grabbing Helios by the scruff before he even wakes and shoving him into the bathroom of his flat with a plate of tuna and some water, beating a thoroughly non-angelic Michael to Jocasta’s shoeshine station and telling him to bugger off before he has a chance to stiff the kid on his payment.

He has, in short, been behaving _incredibly well_ for any being, much less a demon, and ought to be rewarded as such. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?

Once he even manages to keep the Nazis alive so they can be arrested and questioned, in case that’s it, but after the first time he doesn’t bother with it again. There’s enough blood on their hands (and his own) that he’s not sorry to see them go, though he does always warn them it’s coming. Fair’s fair.

Tonight, he just can’t handle it anymore. He’s glib when he dances up the aisle, glancing around at the building he’s spent so many hours watching from outside, and for the first time notices a font of holy water just… standing there, where anyone could take it. He’s distracted, he’s cranky, and when Aziraphale starts to thank him for his kindness he just cleans off his glasses and tells him to shut up. Hands him the books and doesn’t respond to the angel’s caress, just stalks towards the bentley with an offer of a ride he knows will be accepted.

When they get to the bookshop, Aziraphale invites him in, like he always does. Crowley considers it — he knows if he accepts, they’ll end up making love, and he’s just not in the mood. He wants to collapse, fully clothed with his socks still sticking to his burnt feet, into his bed and unconsciousness, not necessarily in that order. With a slight smile, he declines, and makes that beautiful dream a reality, at least until the sun comes up tomorrow.

* * *

London, 1941

Crowley wakes in his own bed. His feet are sore and blistered, he smells like dust and greasy smoke, and he’s wearing the same suit he wore when he got home. Aziraphale’s aura is a warm glow in his psyche, pulsing with joy, and when he hobbles into the bathroom to soak his socks off he’s greeted with a hissing orange cat.

He is alive, and so is Aziraphale.

His love, and the angel’s, remains entirely un-confessed.

He sits on the edge of his bathtub, looking up in the direction of heaven, and nods. “If that’s what it takes, you ineffable bitch.”

He can wait.

He’s got all the time in the world.


End file.
